


Reckless

by below_the_starry_clusters_bright



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Mentions of Abortion, Modern AU, Smut, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:43:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17125874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/below_the_starry_clusters_bright/pseuds/below_the_starry_clusters_bright
Summary: There was something about Kylo Ren that made Rey feel reckless.orWho knew that hating the person you were sleeping with wasn't an effective birth control?





	Reckless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cataclyzmic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cataclyzmic/gifts).



> This is for the collection After the Blazing Fire Dies, based on Cataclyzmic's prompt about an unplanned pregnancy fic. Writing smut is a little bit out of my usual comfort zone so feedback is appreciated. Hope you enjoy!

There was something about Kylo Ren that made Rey feel reckless.

It might have been the way he clutched at her hip against the conference room table, the way he huffed a quiet laugh against her neck as he wrung pleasure from her, or the way he seemed to know the exact number of times he could circle a feather-light touch around her clit before she growled at him to _get a move on_.

“What was that?” he asked, shifting his hand around to grind the heel of his palm against her. “I didn’t hear you.”

Rey choked on the curse word she’d been readying. Her body jerked forwards. He held her weight easily and gave another low chuckle.

“Use your words, sweetheart,” he said.

He always waited for her to ask – no, _beg_ – before he went any further. If Rey was feeling charitable, she might think he was seeking her comfort and wanted her verbal consent.

Rey never felt charitable with Kylo Ren.

“Fuck you,” she said, sounding far more high-pitched than she would have liked.

“Close enough.”

Kylo lifted her onto the conference table. Rey hooked her legs around the back of his knees, drawing him closer without shame. Her skirt rode up her thighs. She leaned forwards to capture Kylo’s mouth with hers as he pushed the fabric around her waist. His hands moved quickly against her bare skin, sure in their path to her underwear having trailed it so many times before.

Rey reached out in her own well-practiced motion of undoing Kylo’s belt. The clink of metal and their sharp, shallow breaths were the only sounds in the otherwise empty room. Everyone else had gone home hours ago to ready themselves for a new day of attrition. The First Order’s usual methods of buying positive press hadn’t been working, and after six weeks of Kylo returning to the Resistance Press office with a higher buy-out offer each time, time was running out before Snoke found some other way to silence them.

Kylo’s patience, already thin, was close to snapping with every polite but firm rejection Leia Organa returned. That was how this had all started, after all. A particularly vicious reaction to Leia’s “No” had sent Rey headlong into a confrontation over the way Kylo treated his estranged mother. Their mutual fury – Rey’s at how anyone could dare treat someone who loved them so poorly, Kylo’s at Rey’s assumption that she could possibly understand the Solo-Skywalker family dynamics – had ignited something. In the space of a breath, their raised voices had been cut off by her mouth devouring his and his hands tugging at the hem of her skirt. Thank God Rey had had the insight not to yell at him until the office was empty.

After that first explosive show of frustration, Rey channelled her swirling mass of anger and fear over Resistance Press’ future into secret trysts in dark conference rooms and kisses that doubled as punishments. Kylo seemed more than eager to feed her fury back to her each time he caught her alone after office hours. He took out his dashed hopes on her, studying her body with a single-minded intensity that always ended with her shuddering in his arms.

_This is the last time,_ Rey thought on a loop, every damned time.

Now, Kylo sheathed himself inside her with a groan. Rey’s mouth fell open in a silent gasp. No matter how ready she was, it always took her a few moments to adjust to him. Kylo took his cues as he always did, and waited for her whimper out a plea before he started moving again.

“Been thinking about this all day,” he grunted.

“That why you lost again?” Rey asked, breathless. “Too busy thinking about fucking me to fuck me over?”

“Didn’t lose. Just didn’t win yet.” His voice rose above the obscenely wet sounds their bodies made together. “And I’m not fucking you over. I’ll set you up – _fuck_ – with another news outlet. More money. Wider audience.”

Rey’s kiss was more an artless mash of lips than anything, but it succeeded in shutting Kylo up. He returned the kiss eagerly, his hands tightening on her hips. Rey’s toes curled as he shifted and angled to hit that deep spot inside of her that only he had ever been able to reach.

“Kylo,” Rey whined in his ear, forgetting everything but that delicious, building pressure.

“Jesus, Rey,” Kylo muttered.

In the month since they had started doing… whatever the hell they were doing, Rey still hadn’t gotten used to the way Kylo said her name. In their meetings, surrounded by their respective colleagues, she was Miss Niima, said with varying tones of cold boredom. Whenever they were alone together, he breathed new life into the simple syllable _Rey_. Whether he was pleading with her or thanking her, he always made her name sound like a prayer.

It felt good to make such a powerful man beg for her. Fuck him for thinking he could stroll into her life and casually tear everything apart. Fuck him for hurting his family by attacking their legacy.

Just… fuck him.

Rey dug her fingers into the shoulders of Kylo’s suit. She hoped her nails left marks in his thousand-dollar jacket. Maybe that was why she was doing this. He was going to take everything she had worked so hard to build for herself. Maybe she just wanted to take something back.

Her orgasm overcame her. She stiffened, high and still climbing, as a throaty cry fell from her mouth. Kylo followed not far behind her. Still lost in a haze, Rey heard her name from behind clenched teeth.

Rey waited for her heartbeat to steady before she pushed Kylo away. She hopped down from the desk. The afterglow was more of a floodlight shining on her bad decision. Her legs trembled as she smoothed her skirt back down. Her pantyhose had been wadded in a ball in her bag an hour ago in anticipation of Kylo seeking her out. Rey should probably have given more thought to the way she would facilitate their hook-ups with such eagerness, but right now she just wanted to get away from her latest bad decision.

From the corner of her eye, Rey saw Kylo tuck himself back into his pants. Both of them fumbled in contrast to their assured movements from before. Once that desperate energy between them had been sated, neither quite knew how to relate to the other. That was for the best, Rey told herself. It made it easier for her to leave.

Instead of letting her walk away like usual, Kylo cleared his throat. Rey turned to him, an eyebrow raised. She couldn’t imagine they had anything to say to each other now that they’d got their usual volleys of insults and praise out of the way.

“I meant what I said, Rey.” Kylo’s voice was low but assured. “I can get you another job. A better one. You’re too talented to be dragged down with this sinking ship.”

Rey scoffed. “Not talented enough, apparently, if you read my op-eds and still choose to work for Snoke.”

Kylo’s features flickered and then closed behind a blank expression.

“I know what kind of man he is,” he said, his tone betraying nothing.

Rey shook her head. She couldn’t help the strange feeling of disappointment welling inside her.  “Then what does say about you?”

“You think we’re no better than the company we keep?” Kylo asked, sending her a sharp, sardonic look. “Noble stance considering my come’s still dripping out of you.”

The breath left Rey’s body in a soft noise of outrage. Not only had Kylo violated their unspoken rule of Not Talking About It, he’d _weaponized_ what they were doing.

Kylo’s mouth worked over itself, as though trying to recapture his words, but he didn’t apologize. Rey scoffed. That strange disappointment rose in her again, tempered this time by anger. She’d had no reason to think that Kylo Ren was any better than the man he had shown himself to be, and yet there’d still been some wild hope inside of her.

“You’re disgusting,” she spat. With one last glower, she turned away. She made it all the way to the door before he spoke again.

“We’re going to shut down Resistance Press one way or another.” His tone had taken on the hard quality she’d heard so many times during the failed negotiation meetings. “You shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss me.”

Rey slammed the door behind her.

_Asshole_ , she fumed.

She was never touching him again.

 

\--

 

A few weeks later, Rey’s hand fell limply to her side. The pregnancy test slid from her slackened fingers. It clattered as it hit the floor of her tiny bathroom, but Rey barely heard it.

Turned out disgust was not an effective birth control.

 

\--

 

Rey bought three more pregnancy tests over the next two days, and despaired when they all came back with the same result. She spent a long time beating herself up over those times few and far between that she’d forgotten to take her birth control pills. It felt like a cruel cosmic joke. There were people out there desperate for a baby, and yet the universe had seen fit to grant new life to two completely unprepared people who had fucked out of spite a few times.

Once Rey had finished castigating herself, it was Kylo’s turn to face her wrath. There was no doubt that he was the one who had helped get Rey into this mess. There’d been no one in the months before he had swept into Resistance Press, no one during their trysts, and no one after.

Maybe no one ever again, if Rey decided to go ahead with the pregnancy. She doubted single mums were in high demand on the dating scene. She probably wouldn’t even have the time or energy to start seeing someone new.

_Shut up_ , Rey told herself forcefully. Scaring herself like that was pointless. She didn’t even know if she wanted to keep the pregnancy yet.

The only thing she knew with any real clarity was that she would have to tell Kylo. He deserved to know, even if he would likely be a complete dickhead about it.

Rey opened a new chat conversation on her phone. Kylo’s number was on the bottom of every terse email she had been CC’d into, but she never thought she’d have cause to use it. Her stomach churned the longer she stared at the empty message box. Was it nerves, or her body already adapting to pregnancy? Not knowing terrified her. If she decided to keep the baby, her future would be full of those uncertain questions.

Rey drummed her fingers on the side of her couch before throwing her phone aside. She was being stupid. Kylo didn’t need to know. In fact, she could make a doctor’s appointment and no one would ever have to know. She could keep the secret close to her heart and keep facing down Kylo with that cold glare she’d been giving him since their last hook-up. Never mind that he kept trying to talk to her, or offer her wordless apologies with those puppy-dog eyes of his when no one else was looking. She never had to talk to him again, and certainly not about this.

Despite her firm thoughts, the idea didn’t sit well with Rey. Kylo might have been a jerk, but he deserved to know he had gotten someone pregnant.

Rey snatched her phone back up and started typing.

_It’s Rey_. _Meet me at The Silver Spoon on Chandrila Avenue in forty-five minutes._

She pressed send before she could change her mind.

Kylo didn’t reply for fifteen minutes. To distract from her nerves, Rey busied herself with tidying and tea-making. Even so, there were only so many things to clean in a box-sized studio apartment. Just as she was beginning to wonder if she should call him, her phone buzzed with an incoming message.

_Why?_

Rey groaned.

_Because I asked you to_ , she typed.

This time, the reply was instant.

_Not good enough._

Rey closed her eyes, feeling frustrated and helpless. If he was going to be this difficult over a simple request, it didn’t bode well for any version of the future where she had to rely on him for something as serious as childcare.

At a loss for anything else to say, Rey sent: _Please._

She stared at her screen until one last message popped up.

_Alright. Half an hour._

 

\--

 

Rey ordered her usual coffee from the small diner, then instantly started fretting over whether or not she was allowed to drink coffee. She had heard something about how pregnant women should limit their caffeine intake, but did that mean to stop altogether? She paid for her drink with a thin-lipped smile and told herself that she deserved the punishment of watching it slowly go cold on the table before her.

She was early to The Silver Spoon. As she waited, she ran down the list of reactions she expected from Kylo once she told him the news. More importantly, she rehearsed how she would respond:

 

  * Yes, I’m certain
  * Yes, it’s yours
  * I don’t know, my birth control obviously failed
  * Well it’s not like you were wearing a condom
  * Don’t just assume I’m getting rid of it
  * What?
  * What the hell is that supposed to mean?
  * Why would I want to trap you?
  * No amount of money would be enough to tie me to you for the rest of my life
  * God, I knew this was a mistake
  * No, fuck this



 

The imagined argument had Rey so heated up that she almost snarled at Kylo when he dragged the chair opposite her away from the table and sat down. He raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment.

“Interesting choice of venue,” he said instead, flicking at the laminated menu. “Does something about being in public do it for you? Or, given this place, maybe it’s more of a humiliation kink.”

Despite the fraught situation, his tone had Rey’s hackles rising in a familiar way.

_I’m not here to have sex with you, you absolute idiot_ , she thought.

What came out of her mouth instead was:

“I’m pregnant.”

She hadn’t really made a plan of how she would tell him. Blurting it out seemed as good an option as any. It gave no room for stalling, and it wasn’t like she could take the words back. She watched as Kylo stiffened and somehow managed to lose what little color his skin had to begin with.

“It’s yours,” she added after an uncomfortably long pause.

Rey wasn’t even sure if Kylo had heard her. His features were blank with shock. There was something boyish to him when he wasn’t smirking or shouting, Rey thought, taking the moment to study his features. Cruelty put years on him.

Kylo drew in a breath that lifted his massive frame. He seemed to slump on exhale.

_This is it_ , Rey thought, gearing herself up for a fight. _This is when he says –_

“What do you want to do?”

His question, quiet and earnest, stunned Rey into silence. All of her carefully curated arguments had been designed with the assumption that Kylo was going to be an asshole. She hadn’t planned for a soft look and what sounded like genuine care in his tone.

“I’d pay for you to have an…” As the seconds dragged on with Kylo’s growing struggle to say the word _abortion_ , he seemed to decide to bypass it altogether. “If that’s what you wanted. I could even go with you.”

The image of Kylo holding her hand in some sterile waiting room was such a bizarre concept that Rey shook her head firmly.

“I don’t want that.”

She must have been imagining the flicker of relief in Kylo’s eyes. She must have been imagining this whole damned conversation, because none of it squared with what she knew about him. Fever dreams made more sense than this.

“I haven’t decided if I’m keeping it,” she added in a rush, not knowing whether she was trying to assure him or herself. “I just don’t want you there.”

Panic had made Rey harsh. She heard it and regretted it the moment Kylo’s eyes met hers and quickly dropped. He held himself very still, as though trying to stop a full-body flinch.

“I just meant that we’re not together,” Rey said, digging herself deeper with a weak tone of apology. “So…”

“So,” Kylo echoed flatly.

Rey felt like she was fucking everything up. What was supposed to have been a simple message delivery had scrambled her words in her brain. Kylo wasn’t supposed to care that she was pregnant. He wasn’t supposed to feel hurt when she rightfully pointed out that they were nothing to each other. Rey gathered her purse to her chest and made to stand up with a muttered “Right, I’ll let you know,” but Kylo was faster. He shot up in his seat and reached out to rest a hand on her arm.

“Wait,” he said. As Rey stared down at his hand, he retracted it and sat back down. “Sorry. Just let me say this.”

Rey gave him a cautious nod and returned to her chair. Kylo leaned forwards over the table, his eyes intent on hers.

“I know I don’t have a say in this,” he started, “and I’ll support you in whatever way you want me to, whatever you decide, but I don’t want you to get rid of it.”

Rey scoffed. Her emotions felt too big to be contained, and she wasn’t sure from one moment to the next if she would burst into tears or laughter.

“I’m supposed to just, what, raise a baby all alone?” she asked, her voice cracking on the last word.

“You’re not alone,” Kylo promised fiercely.

For a moment, he was the Kylo Ren who had swept into Resistance Press, certain of what he wanted and how to get it. He was almost terrifying in his conviction. Whereas usually Rey hated hearing that tone from him, now it made her feel safe. As though she could believe his words, and the implicit promise that he would be there for her no matter what. Her throat tightened. Little by little, her fear over the future ebbed.

“I want to make this work,” Kylo continued, quieter now.

“ _This_ as in the baby, or _this_ as in…” Rey gestured between herself and Kylo. It seemed easier than putting ‘our relationship built on frustration-fuelled hate sex’ into words.

For a moment, Kylo looked uncertain. Rey watched him take a breath, as though gathering his courage. His mouth trembled at the edges.

“Both,” he said, managing to sound both resolute and afraid.

Rey understood that complicated mix. Almost against her will, she softened further towards him.

“I want everything you’re willing to give me,” he continued. His expression was open, his tone almost pleading. “I have ever since I first saw you. And I can’t believe you’re making me say all of this in a fucking diner.”

His disgruntled last sentence sent a shock of amusement through Rey, before the much more sensible confusion set in. She shook her head. This was insane.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she said.

“I know enough,” Kylo insisted. “I know how incredible you are. I know how insanely lucky I am that you even let me touch you, let alone –”

_Rey’s legs wrapped tight around his waist as he drove into her. His filthy endearments hot in her ear when he came_.

“That’s not a good enough reason to raise a family,” Rey argued, ignoring the blush that scorched her cheeks.

Even as she said the words, she thought about what she would class as good enough. Love, which she had. Money, which he had. A good support network, which… Rey may or may not have once everyone found out who the father of her child was. There was a reason she hadn’t told any of her friends yet.

Rey blew out a breath. She shouldn’t even be entertaining the idea of staying pregnant. She should never have come here. She should have made a doctor’s appointment as soon as the two thin lines had shown up on the first test, and currently be sat recovering at home on her couch.

So then why did those thoughts make her heart hurt? How could she feel such a connection to what amounted to nothing more than a few cells? Why was she actually considering the thought of a future with Kylo Ren, of all people, just because he was looking at her like he wanted to give her the world?

The questions all had one answer: she wanted to keep the baby. God help her, but she did. And somehow, against all odds, Kylo wanted to stand beside her.

He hadn’t said anything while Rey had been trying to navigate her thoughts. He sat rigidly in his seat, watching her with a nervousness that made him look like he was sitting in an interview that wasn’t going particularly well. Again, Rey felt an odd sense of endearment towards him.

“I thought you hated me,” she said, her eyes flicking over his face for signs of the disgust she’d assumed they’d shared.

“Never,” Kylo said firmly. “You challenge me and frustrate me, and I still think your crusade to save Resistance Press is doomed. But what I feel for you is far from hate.”

Rey stifled a groan. The fate of Resistance Press loomed over them like an unannounced spectre.

“If I carried on with the pregnancy, would you leave the First Order?” she asked. At Kylo’s frown, she realised how her words must have sounded and hastened to add, “Not that the baby’s a bargaining tool. I just don’t want it having parents who are at war with each other.”

“I don’t want that either,” Kylo said. There was a softness to his tone that hinted at pain. For the first time, Rey wondered if he had been right to accuse her of not having all the facts about his complicated family. “But I don’t have an answer for you right now. At least, not one you want to hear.”

He was gentle but unapologetic. Irrationally, Rey wished he had just lied to her. At least it would have soothed her. But no, she reasoned with herself. It was better if he was honest. They would have to trust each other if there was even a chance of successful co-parenting.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Rey admitted quietly.

“We can do it.” Kylo held out a hand, palm up, and reached for her. “Together.”

Rey had never thought that destiny would sound like the ambient noises of a local diner, or look like the liquid gaze of a man she had convinced herself she hated. She had never given much thought to destiny at all. The future had always seemed like a hazy concept to someone who didn’t have much of a past.

Now, though…

Rey’s hand settled over Kylo’s. Gently, their fingers entwined as Rey sent him a small smile.


End file.
